Real Family Values: Nine Progressive Policies to Support Our Families

[and-justice-for-all]

Monday 25 October 2010
by: Sarah van Gelder | YES! Magazine | Op-Ed

Every family needs a place to live. When banks use our homes and mortgages to make bets in the global casino, we wind up with predatory lending, financial bubbles, crashes, and foreclosures:
1. SAFEGUARD OUR HOMES

* Shared Equity Home Ownership is a way to make homes permanently affordable. Community groups or local agencies invest in homes and share the equity with homeowners. When a homeowner sells, the agency shares in any gain, recycling the funds to keep homes permanently affordable. The foreclosure rate in Community Land Trusts, one example of this model, is 1/8th the national rate.
* Protect families from foreclosures by allowing judges to modify unaffordable loans.

2. CREATE JOBS

Government stimulus spending should be aimed at a recovery that can support families, communities, and the natural environment. Green and locally based jobs are our best bets:

* Fund job programs that create and retain jobs at the local level. Give preference to communities with high unemployment and to green jobs.

more: http://www.truth-out.org/real-family-values-9-progressive-policies-support-our-families65741

[ProudDad]

1. Thanks for posting this! K&R (n/t)